Shadowborn Dawn
by Aadron
Summary: The dawn of the age of Man. Of mortality, of weakness, of forgetfulness. Foolish leaders thought themselves wise. They mistakenly believed in the impossible. Humanity would not exist without the aid of those more powerful and intelligent than them. Because in their hubris, they had forgotten. They thought their greatest threat defeated. They were wrong.


Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

The house was nondescript on the lower dockside of Ansalon's End. He watched from a nearby alleyway, a nearby street light flickering as the captured glowbug within its glass casing surrendered to the light of the midnight moon. His senses were on high alert, even the slightest sound setting his hairs to stand on end.

Darion breathed deeply and frowned. The all too familiar scent of _wrongness_ was on the wind, the purposeful warping of reality as magic was twisted to serve unknown masters. He kneeled down and pulled out his bag, reaching deep within and pulling out a mask.

Inside the house, all was dark, all was night. It was dark like a yawning grave, inviting him to enter and never leave. Silence licked the walls of the home like a fog around a midnight forest. It oft bespoke danger when there was silence like this.

The inquisitor's mask was nondescript, with only slots for eyes and holes for breathing in the front. Its purpose, rather than to be practical, was to strike fear into those who beheld it. He didn't mind the mask though, the human face after all, was nothing more than another mask to him.

Without this mask, he was a man.

When he put it on, he became a tool.

Darion's heart skipped a beat as he slid it on, the faintest whisper of a smile reaching his lips. The expectation of a fight made him feel almost weightless, his mouth going dry. His breath seemed to stutter in his lungs before he let it go, feeling the tension drain from his body and then reappear as he took another breath.

He called out to his weapon and for a second it didn't appear. There were times before where it hadn't appeared. Demonic weapons were temperamental, sometimes having a will that went contrary to the wishes of its master. He inhaled deeply and called out again within his mind, entreating the flail to appear within his hand and this time, it answered. The hole in reality briefly opened and he reached through, the dark otherworldly metal glinting with a soft, purple glow.

Darion darted out of the alleyway, casting a spell that would mask his progression and the clatter of his armor. He sprinted rapidly across the street and slid to cover behind the thick hedgerows of the house he had been observing for the last couple hours. He craned his neck, looking up at the windows of the house.

Nothing stirred from within. But still, the sense of _**wrongness**_ lingered. Darion slid along the hedgerows and tread quietly up to the door.

He steeled his nerves one last time, heart playing a chaotic melody in his chest.

The door exploded inwards as Darion's heavy boot ripped a hole through the rotting wood. But rather than the whole door caving in, his boot merely got caught in a hole of his own creation. Cursing angrily, a shoulder soon followed awkwardly as the rather large armored man slowly ripped the door to enough shreds that he could fit himself through.

 _Welp, there goes stealth…_

Darion stewed angrily at his own ineptitude, tearing apart his momentary mortal enemy in the form of the door. Try as he might though, the door was proving to be a mighty foe. The rotted wood splintered in portions far too small under his hands, failing to make a hole of any decent size and rather just making massive amounts of noise.

 _Fuck this._

Negative energy warped around Darion as his hands twitched outwards, suddenly convalescing into darkness around his hands. The door shattered into a million different shards as he released a warlock blast, obliterating the door, the door frame, as well as the windows above him shattering, raining glass down around him like a gently tinkling rain.

"Hello, hello!" His heavy boots clomped into the house as he cast wrathful smite, branding smite, and protection from good and evil upon himself. "Anyone home?"

Sarcastic though his comment was, he couldn't help himself. Call it an inquisitor's sense of humour, when you're in enough life or death situations your sense of danger starts to get a little warped. His eyes scanned the foyer of house, and he tapped the side of his head, activating the magical device he had.

His gaze drifted down and immediately, the sense of _wrongness_ returned. Darion's hand twitched, the flail reacting, the head of the weapon almost swinging in anticipation. A slight purple glow surrounded him, blue eyes staring out menacingly out from behind the mask.

All pretenses of stealth thrown metaphorically out the window, Darion started stomping down the stairs to the basement, dragging his flail behind him. The wrongness was almost overwhelming at this point, demonic energy flowing around him, pouring forth from below… No, it was level now. He was face to face with it.

It was in the form of a little girl, the visage of a grieving mother crying over her limp body. Darion looked left and right, taking in the sight of the room. Candles were lit, a pool of blood forming around a lamb sacrificed in a basin on the right side of the room. Runes and glyphs glowed with dark energy, gathering in the body of the girl.

"Just bring me back my baby… Please…" The mother's sobs wracked her whole body, shuddering with every harried breath. "I'll do anything…"

Darion couldn't help but feel at least a slight bit of pity for the woman. Who wouldn't after all? The sight of a grieving mother ought to make even the most stone-hearted of men, a legion which Darion considered himself a part of, feel something. But there was no time for that. The dark energy began to pulse, the little girl beginning to twitch and shake as though it were a marionette whose master had been seized by convulsions.

Darion got rid of his flail now that he could see that this was the obvious work of an amateur, allowing it to quietly disappear into its immaterial state.

 _Welp, time to put a stop to this._

He smoothly put his foot forward and smudged a portion of the chalk line, cutting off the link to the other side.

The dark energy rapidly dissipated, black smoke hissing away as the room seemed to momentarily lighten. The mother looked up suddenly, her countenance twisting into interrupted anger, pain, and horror.

"Who-"

His mailed fist cut off any protest the woman could have possibly had. The first hit doubled her over, taking her in the stomach and knocking the wind out of her lungs. The next blow came in the form of an overhead slam formed of two heavily mailed fists coming down upon her head as effectively as any hammer. He then grabbed her now limp, considerably less conscious form and slammed her into a wall via his grip on her neck for good measure, the audible crack of her nose responding to his use of totally appropriate force.

Never hurts to be too sure, right?

Darion, now victorious against the daunting opponent of an emotionally, now physically traumatized, housewife kneeled down to check the specifics of the incantation she was using.

What he beheld was subtly horrifying, itching the back of his mind in an unnerving way. It would have been trouble for even the likes of him if she had been successful… How this woman had even got her hands on and the means to perform something like this was beyond him, but he was glad he had managed to track her down as quickly as he had.

He stood up, stretching his arms out. Another job well done and another poor soul with some sense knocked into them. All in the day's work of an inquisitor of the College of Whispers. Darion turned around, grabbing the woman by the hem of her dress and started dragging her towards the door. Rather, that's what he would have done had there not been a very important missing detail.

The table the girl had been on. The markings were still there but something was missing. It was empty.

"Where's the girl?" He whispered under his breath, drawing in a sharp intake of air as he summoned his flail once again.

A bit of black, sticky ichor dripped down from above, oozing onto his shoulder and down his cloak. Darion sighed, dropping the woman to the floor.

 _This is why I need a partner._ Darion thought, frowning as he looked up and into the black soulless eyes of the demon above him.


End file.
